A bakery stall at an Ortigas mall expressed gratitude after receiving messages of support following the viral incident where a customer grabbed cookies from their unmanned stall.
The Manila Baker on Wednesday, July 5 took to Facebook to thank social media users for the “overwhelming” messages after its customer gave them a negative review following their response to her action.
“Sooooo, that happened,” it said with a grinning-with-sweat emoji.
“On behalf of our entire Kitchen Team [and] Sales staff, [please] allow us to express our gratitude, MARAMING, MARAMING SALAMAT for your support and countless encouraging messages,” the bakery stall added with a face-holding-back-tears emoji.
“It’s really overwhelming! Honestly, we just want to continue serving you all unique, freshly baked, premium and delicious desserts, so again, [m]araming, maraming SALAMAT,” The Manila Baker added with emojis of hundred points and bakers.
The post came after social media users rallied behind them when a Facebook user reportedly dropped a negative review about the bakery stall in its kiosk at The Podium, saying she “doesn’t recommend” it.
“Wanted to buy cookies in their unmanned kiosk at Podium. After waiting for 15 [minutes], I got cookies [and] messaged their [Facebook] account to pay [through] GCash,” the customer said in a now-publicly unavailable post.
She also attached screenshots of her Facebook conversation with the bakery stall in her post.
“The reply was berating messages instead [shrugging emoji]. Not surprising as another previous review called the owner arrogant. I am not expecting gratitude for my voluntary honesty, but professional communication is a minimum requirement of any business. Never buying here again,” the customer added.
The Manila Baker responded to her by saying that their staff went to a bank and the restroom.
“She posted the ‘We will be right back’ sign,” the bakery stall said in the message.
It then sent its GCash details and thanked the customer for paying.
However, the bakery stall added that the customer should message them online if the latter were in a rush at that time since their staff was running an errand.
“If this was a different situation and nobody informed us, our staff would have been charged with the P800. I do hope you know where we are coming from and understand why this cannot happen again… thank you,” The Manila Baker said in the exchange.
Meanwhile, some Facebook users expressed support for the bakery stall in light of the negative review.
“[Though] I appreciate the honesty of the customer in eventually paying for the cookies from The Manila Baker, it’s important to understand the perspective of the business owner as well. The owner simply requested the customer to message them online promptly because their staff would be charged for missing items if not informed,” a Facebook user wrote.
“If that person was seen or someone reported them to the mall security and they were caught right there, it wouldn’t matter if their intention was to pay later. They would be charged with shoplifting,” another online user commented.
According to Spot.ph, the management of the bakery stall was “sad” that it was forced to defend its brand even though it was the customer who committed an offense.
“Our entire team in TMB [The Manila Baker] always works hard to find the best practice, system, and product quality; then for it to be put in question over something with no bearing is just really frustrating,” they said to the publication.
“We are hoping that after this whole thing, she realizes her actions were uncalled for. Maraming salamat,” they added.
Meanwhile, the bakery stall in an Instagram Story updated the public that its Brown Butter Salted Chocolate Cookies are a “hot commodity these days.”
The post was a reference to the cookies that were grabbed by the customer before.
The Manila Baker sells “freshly baked” goods such as cornbread, apple crumble pie, cookies of different varieties, and various cakes like banana cake, chocolate cloud cake, and basque burnt cheesecake, among others.